A group of strategic communications majors at the University of Missouri learned about the intricacies involved in planning for a pope’s funeral when no one wishes to acknowledge he is dying. That story and others were shared by Cardinal John Foley during his visit last month to Columbia.

Parker Eshelman photo

Cardinal John Foley, the former head of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications at the Vatican,
speaks last week during Professor Maria Len-Rios’ public relations class at the University of Missouri.
Foley was the second Catholic cardinal to appear at MU.

Foley, the second Roman Catholic Cardinal ever to visit Columbia, spent 23 years coordinating public relations for the Vatican. He was appointed President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications on April 5, 1984, said the Rev. Thomas Saucier, who organized the cardinal’s visit, which also included giving masses at the Newman Center and a lecture on religion in the news. Foley was made a cardinal on Nov. 24.

Originally from Philadelphia, Foley explained how he used Mother Teresa’s beatification in 2003 to make the necessary preparations for the passing of Pope John Paul II on April 2, 2005. Thousands of Catholics waited in vigil in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City before he died, and 5,000 television journalists requested permission to cover the funeral and the subsequent election of a new pope, he said. "His funeral was one of the most impressive events you can imagine," Foley said.

One public relations coup Foley related to the students was his arrangement for cameras to be present when three U.S. presidents - George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush - knelt and prayed before the pope’s coffin.

"Public relations are extremely important and the least expensive way of" communicating, he said. "If you provide interesting material and you have the right connections, you can get your message across."

But making those connections can be the most difficult part of religious public relations.

Parker Eshelman photo

Cardinal John Foley, former head of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications at the Vatican leads a master class Thursday during Professor Maria Len-Rios' public relations class in Fisher Auditorium at MU Thursday.

Foley told the students that he doesn’t think religion is taken seriously enough by news editors. "They mistake ignorance for objectivity … but when you’re not informed, you make so many indeliberate" mistakes, he said, which can result in insulting someone’s religion.

Anticipating different religious perspectives on comments he made while in the social communications papal office was an important part of Foley’s position, he said. The first schooling he received after being ordained was in philosophy to help him distinguish which philosophy people were using intheir thinking, even when they themselves sometimes did not know.

Pope Benedict XVI angered Muslims around the world when he quoted a Byzantine emperor’s 14th-century writing on Islam during a presentation in Germany. The quotation called the religion evil, inhuman and that it was spread by the sword.

"In some societies, people got violent, which is ironic," Foley said. "Priests were shot, churches were burned."

During his time in charge of communications for the pope, the pedophile priest scandal in the United States broke and American bishops called him for advice on how to handle it.

"What was my answer? Virtue, and in the absence of virtue, candor," he said. "If you try to cover it up, it destroys the credibility of the church."

However, some of his official duties were fun. Every year, Foley was responsible for showing the pope new movies. He chose "Life is Beautiful" one year, and the pope invited Roberto Benigni, the Italian actor who plays a father in the movie who manages to convince his son that the Holocaust is a big game.

Foley sat between the Pope and Benigni - who has a reputation for being an irrepressible clown - "mostly to prevent him from jumping on the lap of the pope.

"He said before the pope arrived, ‘I lived 10 minutes away from here, when do I get a call? When I’m in LA,’ " Foley said.

Benigni told Foley a doctor diagnosed his wife with the flu on the day the couple was invited to the Vatican. She protested and said she had to fly to Rome. The doctor told her she couldn’t go, not even if the pope himself called, Benigni told Foley.

Foley also was responsible for getting the Vatican online when he secured a top-level domain designation - ".va" - for the 108-acre independent papal state from the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees Internet domain names. Internet users had begun using Web addresses including terms such as the "Vatican" and "Catholic Church" to attract users to sites that featured everything from misinformation to pornography. Foley recognized a need to have one domain that Catholics could trust.

ICANN originally denied Foley’s request, he said, and told him because the Vatican was in Rome, it was in Italy and must have the domain ending with ".it."

"No, we’re not," Foley said he told the group. "We’re surrounded by ‘.it,’ and in another sense of the word, we are ‘.it,’ but we’re not in ‘.it.’ "

"So if you see anything coming from .va, God bless you," Foley said. "Occasionally it may be dull" - the students laughed - "but it’s authentic."

One of Foley’s most moving moments during his 23 years happened during the last service over which Pope John Paul II was able to preside - the Good Friday service before Easter in 2005. The pope watched the ceremony from his chapel on a monitor, Foley said, but there was also a camera on the pope that he didn’t know about. The pope held a crucifix during the Stations of the Cross, a prayer depicting the final hours of Jesus’ life. When the 12th station was reached, which represents Jesus’ Crucifixion, Pope John Paul II hugged the crucifix.

Foley was translating the service into English at the time.

"The man was suffering. It was hard for me to continue, it was such a moving moment," Foley said.